"I did not have any of that language to make sense of what I was experiencing," she says. "My church evangelical free church had no, no ministry related to mental health or the emotions" The world just sort of closed it on me."
Curtis talks with the “elder statesman” of Christian counseling, Dan Allender, about how therapy has influenced the American church - in much needed and also problematic ways. They explore how therapy has provided an important place for Christians to bring to Jesus the real, hard, and sometimes traumatic realities of life - often in ways that the church could not. They also examine how “moralistic therapeutic deism” increasingly describes the actual civil religion of Americans.
For examples of great books by Dan and his lifelong friend, Tremper Longman III, consider these two classics: Bold Love and The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God.
For the original description of “moralistic therapeutic deism” as the religion of American youth, check out Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton.
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